Or how I learned that the end of the world as we know it, isn't always a bad thing

Monday, October 13, 2008

Marathon Weekend--XPost

(as always, if you want to view the photos and captions without being in my fake living room, just click on the photos)

We've been busy! Two of our six (oldest son and oldest daughter) have trained for allmost a year for the Chicago Marathon. This weekend was Marathon Weekend and boy, did we have fun.

We left Friday afternoon, picked up R. (daughter) and drove to small town, Illinois where B. (son) lives. Got to go out to dinner with the kids, B.'s friend, A. and her mom, N. Good food and good fun.

Slept in a bit on Saturday AM and then drove into the city, where we behaved like good parents by waiting for the two runners to get their registration packets (can you say TRAFFIC? and DOUBLE PARK? and stressful, angry outbursts, with honking and increased blood pressure? I thought you could.). lol

Then, the kids did their thing and Mark and I went on a bit of a walk at sunset. After that, we were hungry, so we ducked into a Thai place on Lake Michigan. Yum. Finally, we went to bed early (cuz the runners needed their rest).

Up early on race day and down to the starting line about a mile aways and an hour before the gun. Another walk around the lakeshore and back to the room to nap...er, relax.

The the worst part of the insanity began as we began to try to find a way to watch our runners cross the line. yeah. We are stoopid. lol

I had no idea how many people are waaay into this. 45,000 runners. Each with an entourage of supporters. It was sheer madness.And rather HOT for mid-October (80 degrees). So it was 'sweaty' madness, my least favorite form of the disease.

So, we did not get to see either runner cross the finish line and had to resort to Plan B (thank goodness we *had* a Plan B) and simply met in the hotel room. Wow. I am so very impressed with the dedication and fitness level of R. and B. I could NEVER run marathon.

The runners rallied well and after showers, we all went off to dinner and ate some legendary pizza. And got to listen to Chicago natives say, "Sausage" just like on that Chris Farley SNL sketch. ha ha

Even thought we didn't get home till 10:30 PM, exhausted (although, I will concede we were not as exhausted as the runners-lol), it was all so worth it.Would they do it again? Well, 50% of them would.I'll let you guess which one is which.